Hey Blog Readers! I have quite an adventure to tell you about! There was a long weekend here in Kigali since Friday and Monday (tomorrow) are both national holidays. One marks the day that Kigali gained independence from Belgium, but I'm not too sure what the other one marks...Anyways, we took full advantage and we drove out to Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda with some of our friends from the WE-ACT house! :)
Zach and I went in to teach early Friday morning, but we left Kigali around noon straight for Uganda. I slept most of the way to the border (where I got my newest passport stamp!) and after stopping to ask many many locals how to get to the park, we arrived around 8:00PM Friday night (Uganda is somehow one hour ahead of Rwanda despite it being North, we still didn't quite figure this out). We grabbed a quick dinner and got some rest since we had to be up and ready to go by 6:00AM the following morning. We took a tour of the park and all of its wildlife--Ugandan Kob, Warthogs, Buffalo, more Ugandan Kobs, many species of birds and butterflies, it was great. We had a tour guide--Jane--who just cracked me up. We kept asking her questions about the park but when she said that the temperature in the park ranged from 18 degrees Celsius to 18 degress Celsius, I just couldn't contain myself. We have this friend, Frank, who was only adding wood to the fire with his jokes. By 8:30AM, I had laughed more than I had this whole trip to Rwanda. It was great.
By this time, we were pretty hungry, so we stopped for none other than PB & J sandwiches! There was a spot in the park that had wooden benches, so we just chose one in the shade and ate away! I have to say this much: Uganda is a gorgeous country. I wish my internet connection would allow me to upload a picture for you, but the hills are simply breath-taking. After lunch, we decided to tour the 'Explosion Craters' in the northern region of the park and then make our way down South as we head back to Rwanda. The craters were amazing. We kept trying to figure out how they all came to be so different. One had water, one had a flat plane of grass and the third had a forest. All were beautiful.
We were tired at this point, but we were also determined to make it down to the South of the park where we heard that there were TREE CLIMBING LIONS!!! We thought the lion tours were only in the morning, but we found out that they also had them in the evening, so we had to rush! It was already 4:05PM and we had an approximate 2 hour drive to the lions. We were all pretty determined to find Simba! I, of course, slept most of the way to the lions, but we got there around 6:10, just in time to snag a tour guide and GO! After about 25 minutes, we finally found them, sitting there in the tree. We caught them just when they were waking up to go and find...breakfast? dinner? Not too sure, but it was amazing. I got some good shots of the lions and some pretty good videos (which of course I can't upload...but you will see them at some point!). All in all, it was a very productive and VERY tiring day. We slept in these bandas which had ZERO electricity. It was interesting to go back to living in the old days where people had to use flashlights to get around. We basically just slept early and woke up around 6:45AM to go and find the lions again!
Unfortunately, we didn't find them this time, so we were glad that we at least got out the night before to get a glimpse. We did, however, get the chance to go on a nature walk and see HIPPOS! A whole family of hippos! There must have been like 15 of them all sitting in the river that separates Uganda from the Congo. Hippos are such lazy animals, all they do is sit and make noises all day. I wouldn't mind that kind of life :) It was nearing noon by this point and we knew that we had a long drive back to Kigali, so we decided to head out. We took this path through a beautiful forest. We were told that we might get the chance to see some gorillas, but that didn't happen. :( Maybe next time. We did drive through the mountains for a good number of hours though. I waved to every Ugandan child I could find. They are so funny when they see foreigners, they just drop whatever they are doing and run to say hi and ask for money lol.
We crossed the border back into Rwanda and listened to Rwandan music the whole way home! Overall, I have to say that this was a well spent and well deserved long weekend. Zach and I have a bit of catching up to do tomorrow and we're hoping that we can go to the Volcanoes this coming weekend, we'll see :) Good Night from Rwanda Everyone! Ijoro Giza! I'm exhausted.
Will
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Biryogo, The Mountain Village and Amahoro--What a Weekend :)
To my committed blog readers: I have to apologize for not being on top of my blogging for the past week. Firstly, things picked up around Wednesday of last week with the start of our labs and a lot of work from Zach and myself in terms of lecture preparation. We got through the first week just fine and we're coming up on the half way point of the second. It's kind of scary how fast the time is going. Secondly, I had an AWESOME weekend that just didn't give me the time to sit and tell you all about it. But here we go...
There is a fifth year student, Fabrice, who has been sitting in on our class. After the lab on Friday he asked us whether we wanted to go and grab a bite to eat. I was curious what he had in mind and when he said 'omelets', I was like....omelets? I came all the way to Africa to eat an Omelet? Show me some real food! He assured me this was true Kigali cuisine and so I had to see it and *EAT* it for myself :) I had plans to play tennis with my Rwandan Junior player buddy, Hakim, so of course I took another opportunity to hit up the clay courts and decided I could spend a night on the town! One of the best decisions I've ever made.
Fabrice took me to parts of Kigali I had never even heard of (in fact, most of the foreigners that I ask haven't even heard of this place, so maybe I was a bit lucky to get the chance to go there with a native of the city). The town we went to is known as 'Biryogo' and has the nickname 'California', pretty fitting if you ask me. A Cali boy in the African Cali! It is essentially located right behind the university where we teach. It's pretty amazing how this 'new world' has been right next to me this whole time, I just never knew about it. We literally crossed the street and there were people everywhere, I mean everywhere! In the street, on the sidewalk, in stores, looking at things outside of stores. There were people carrying things on their motorcycles, on their heads, babies on their backs tied in this odd way that I swear was not going to hold, but somehow did. There was a woman that had a shirt, but for some reason decided to walk around without it. There were police guards every 10 meters or so. There were kids running all over the place, most of them looking at me and waving.
I had forgotten I was a foreigner until we finally got this tiny house and this man was prepping a fire. Fabrice turns to me and goes "Most Muzungo (foreigners) won't eat it because they think that it's not sanitary enough. Just let me know what you think". I hadn't realized that this was the place we were supposed to eat dinner. To be honest, I was a bit worried. I had forgotten to take my malaria pill the previous night because I was just so exhausted from the week, but also, I just wasn't sure I wanted to take the risk of being sick and being out of commission for the whole weekend and possibly the first few days of class the following week. In my head, I thought, "Wasn't part of the reason you came to Africa to have a cultural experience? Did you really come here to eat the food made for the foreigners who are just too scared to do try something random?". I'm so glad that I finally convinced myself to just go for it. Not only was I illness-free afterwards, the food was AMAZING.
I guess the best way i can describe it is this: Take a tortilla, but
french fries on the bottom of it in a frying pan, but eggs on the top of it and you have this weird potato, tortilla, egg omelet.
If that doesn't help, look at the picture on the LEFT (<-----).
Soooooo good.
As I was waiting for my food to arrive, this woman came up to me and started speaking to me in Kinyarwanda. I don't know what she said at first, but the second thing she said was "Amakuru", which I registered as, "How are you" and said "Ni meza", "I'm good". She immediately stretched out her hand in this accepting gesture. My friend turned to me and said, "this woman will not shake hands with any foreigner who doesn't know something about the culture of Rwanda. You passed the test". I was so proud! :) These children also started coming up to me and saying "Good morning, Sir!" (at around 7:30PM) and I would tell them "Mwiriwe", the Kinyarwanda greeting for "Good afternoon, Good Evening". The kids were SHOCKED. lol. "Does he know our language"? Of course, I said I didn't know the language, but I was trying to become familiar with it. Overall, I think I left a pretty good impression on some of the people in Biryogo.
At that point, I thought my night was over, but it had truly only just begun. Fabrice said that he had to go and meet his friend to talk about a project that they are working on. He could either take me back to my house and then go see his friend or I could go with....of course, I was ready to see as much of Kigali as he would show me in one night. To get there, we had to take a Kigali bus and OMG, these things are hilarious. One thing I was truly convinced of this weekend is how much Kigali feels like México. So firstly, they pack as many people in these buses as possible (A trend that I am starting to notice is common everywhere outside of the United States) AND all the buses have names of famous singers in America. I can recall a few: Sean Paul, Ciara, Jason Derülo, Akon, Chris Brown, lol I couldn't stop laughing at the fact that they branded their public transportation this way (Sorry, Julian, no Backstreet Boys).
We finally made it to the end of the bus route and we were at.....the foot of a mountain? Huh? I thought we were going to go and visit Fabrice's friend....apparently he lived somewhere up this mountain. I don't really know how to describe where we were. It's a placed called "Mount Kigali", but it's not like I had to climb the mountain to get to his friend's house (though that would be cool too lol). There was a clear path up the mountain that cars and motorcycles went up every few minutes. I guess it was more of a hike up this mountain, but there was a sort of mini village there that I really didn't expect. I think I was the first foreigner to ever be seen by these people, I swear. Children ran up to me and shook my hand, so happy to see me. I wonder what kids are told here about foreigners (aside from the fact that they "have a lot of money").
We finally found Fabrice's friend after a number of phone calls and when he met me he said, "What kind of beer would you like?". I said, "Amazi (water) is fine, thanks". He was a bit shocked that an American man wouldn't accept a beer (again, I wonder what people are told about foreigners here). When we got to his house, I was like WHOA. It might have been in the middle of nowhere, but the house itself was nice. Comfortable furniture, decent sized TV, a sound system, nice tiled floor. I could totally see myself hanging out in the mountains of Kigali with a pad like that! We sat and watched Rwandan music videos for a good hour. The influence of American music here is so funny (as I alluded to with the branding of the Kigali buses). First off, artists have such interesting names, like King James or Miss JoJo. Secondly, they try so hard to look just like American music videos and the themes of the music are all the same, mainly, attempts to 'get the girl'.
As we were walking back to my house, some interesting things happened. First, people kept coming up to me and saying 'Nǐhǎo'. At first, I was like, these people can't be speaking to me in Chinese (their tones were pretty terribly, but I knew what they were getting at), but then I realized that these people actually think I'm Chinese. Not sure why, but I at least I can talk to them in Chinese if they want. :) Then I heard Fabrice yell out, "El Señor!". Of course my brain registered that as Spanish, but I was like, there is no way that this guy's name is really 'El Señor'. Apparently, he goes by Gustavo (even on facebook) and he is a Rwandan that truly has a passion for the Spanish language....and his pronunciation is pretty good. I was blown away by everything he knew. He could carry on a pretty decent conversation for awhile. I couldn't stop laughing when he said 'murciélago' (which means bat in English, like the flying ones). I just thought it was so random, of all words to know, how the hell did you come to know 'murciélago' lol I hope that we can continue to bond over the Spanish language :)
That basically ended my Friday night as I made my way home, but I went to bed pretty excited for the Football match we were going to the following morning. It was for the final of the Peace Cup here in Rwanda. The Police were up against the Army (yes, they each have their own separate team here in Rwanda...and both came out to cheer their teams on). We had another experience with the Kigali buses as we made our way up to the stadium. It was only 250 Francs to get us pretty far (that's only about 50 cents in American Money)! Even better, the football match was only 1,000 Francs (that's about a $1.70)! Why can't everything i
n America be this cheap!?!?!?! The stadium itself is pretty nice, it's bright yellow and green, the colors of Rwanda. It was designed by a Chinese architect too! The match itself was pretty exciting. We all know that I'm a HUGE tennis fan (by the way, WIMBLEDON is going on right now!!! GO DJOKOVIC!), but there's a tiny place in my heart for football, especially since it brings me back to the days that I was out on the field myself (LONG time ago). People are so into football here, though, in a way that is really nothing like it is in America. It's all pretty interesting.
In the end, Army beat Po
lice, which was pretty sad for my friend, but I actually wanted the Army to win. Their crowd was so much more energetic and apparently, they have more fans in Rwanda than Police. I even told my housekeeper, Kandita that I had gone to the soccer match (I also went to church with her that same morning) and she asked me, who did you root for. When I said Army (APR is the name they are known by throughout Rwanda), she immediately gave me a high-five! lol
Enjoy these other pictures of the match!
That's essentially how the weekend went. It was lots of fun and excitement and also a lot of work as we got ready for the lectures and labs that we would giving this week. I hope this gave you a taste of my life here in Kigali.
Much love,
Will
There is a fifth year student, Fabrice, who has been sitting in on our class. After the lab on Friday he asked us whether we wanted to go and grab a bite to eat. I was curious what he had in mind and when he said 'omelets', I was like....omelets? I came all the way to Africa to eat an Omelet? Show me some real food! He assured me this was true Kigali cuisine and so I had to see it and *EAT* it for myself :) I had plans to play tennis with my Rwandan Junior player buddy, Hakim, so of course I took another opportunity to hit up the clay courts and decided I could spend a night on the town! One of the best decisions I've ever made.
Fabrice took me to parts of Kigali I had never even heard of (in fact, most of the foreigners that I ask haven't even heard of this place, so maybe I was a bit lucky to get the chance to go there with a native of the city). The town we went to is known as 'Biryogo' and has the nickname 'California', pretty fitting if you ask me. A Cali boy in the African Cali! It is essentially located right behind the university where we teach. It's pretty amazing how this 'new world' has been right next to me this whole time, I just never knew about it. We literally crossed the street and there were people everywhere, I mean everywhere! In the street, on the sidewalk, in stores, looking at things outside of stores. There were people carrying things on their motorcycles, on their heads, babies on their backs tied in this odd way that I swear was not going to hold, but somehow did. There was a woman that had a shirt, but for some reason decided to walk around without it. There were police guards every 10 meters or so. There were kids running all over the place, most of them looking at me and waving.
I had forgotten I was a foreigner until we finally got this tiny house and this man was prepping a fire. Fabrice turns to me and goes "Most Muzungo (foreigners) won't eat it because they think that it's not sanitary enough. Just let me know what you think". I hadn't realized that this was the place we were supposed to eat dinner. To be honest, I was a bit worried. I had forgotten to take my malaria pill the previous night because I was just so exhausted from the week, but also, I just wasn't sure I wanted to take the risk of being sick and being out of commission for the whole weekend and possibly the first few days of class the following week. In my head, I thought, "Wasn't part of the reason you came to Africa to have a cultural experience? Did you really come here to eat the food made for the foreigners who are just too scared to do try something random?". I'm so glad that I finally convinced myself to just go for it. Not only was I illness-free afterwards, the food was AMAZING.
I guess the best way i can describe it is this: Take a tortilla, but
french fries on the bottom of it in a frying pan, but eggs on the top of it and you have this weird potato, tortilla, egg omelet.If that doesn't help, look at the picture on the LEFT (<-----).
Soooooo good.
As I was waiting for my food to arrive, this woman came up to me and started speaking to me in Kinyarwanda. I don't know what she said at first, but the second thing she said was "Amakuru", which I registered as, "How are you" and said "Ni meza", "I'm good". She immediately stretched out her hand in this accepting gesture. My friend turned to me and said, "this woman will not shake hands with any foreigner who doesn't know something about the culture of Rwanda. You passed the test". I was so proud! :) These children also started coming up to me and saying "Good morning, Sir!" (at around 7:30PM) and I would tell them "Mwiriwe", the Kinyarwanda greeting for "Good afternoon, Good Evening". The kids were SHOCKED. lol. "Does he know our language"? Of course, I said I didn't know the language, but I was trying to become familiar with it. Overall, I think I left a pretty good impression on some of the people in Biryogo.
At that point, I thought my night was over, but it had truly only just begun. Fabrice said that he had to go and meet his friend to talk about a project that they are working on. He could either take me back to my house and then go see his friend or I could go with....of course, I was ready to see as much of Kigali as he would show me in one night. To get there, we had to take a Kigali bus and OMG, these things are hilarious. One thing I was truly convinced of this weekend is how much Kigali feels like México. So firstly, they pack as many people in these buses as possible (A trend that I am starting to notice is common everywhere outside of the United States) AND all the buses have names of famous singers in America. I can recall a few: Sean Paul, Ciara, Jason Derülo, Akon, Chris Brown, lol I couldn't stop laughing at the fact that they branded their public transportation this way (Sorry, Julian, no Backstreet Boys).
We finally made it to the end of the bus route and we were at.....the foot of a mountain? Huh? I thought we were going to go and visit Fabrice's friend....apparently he lived somewhere up this mountain. I don't really know how to describe where we were. It's a placed called "Mount Kigali", but it's not like I had to climb the mountain to get to his friend's house (though that would be cool too lol). There was a clear path up the mountain that cars and motorcycles went up every few minutes. I guess it was more of a hike up this mountain, but there was a sort of mini village there that I really didn't expect. I think I was the first foreigner to ever be seen by these people, I swear. Children ran up to me and shook my hand, so happy to see me. I wonder what kids are told here about foreigners (aside from the fact that they "have a lot of money").
We finally found Fabrice's friend after a number of phone calls and when he met me he said, "What kind of beer would you like?". I said, "Amazi (water) is fine, thanks". He was a bit shocked that an American man wouldn't accept a beer (again, I wonder what people are told about foreigners here). When we got to his house, I was like WHOA. It might have been in the middle of nowhere, but the house itself was nice. Comfortable furniture, decent sized TV, a sound system, nice tiled floor. I could totally see myself hanging out in the mountains of Kigali with a pad like that! We sat and watched Rwandan music videos for a good hour. The influence of American music here is so funny (as I alluded to with the branding of the Kigali buses). First off, artists have such interesting names, like King James or Miss JoJo. Secondly, they try so hard to look just like American music videos and the themes of the music are all the same, mainly, attempts to 'get the girl'.
As we were walking back to my house, some interesting things happened. First, people kept coming up to me and saying 'Nǐhǎo'. At first, I was like, these people can't be speaking to me in Chinese (their tones were pretty terribly, but I knew what they were getting at), but then I realized that these people actually think I'm Chinese. Not sure why, but I at least I can talk to them in Chinese if they want. :) Then I heard Fabrice yell out, "El Señor!". Of course my brain registered that as Spanish, but I was like, there is no way that this guy's name is really 'El Señor'. Apparently, he goes by Gustavo (even on facebook) and he is a Rwandan that truly has a passion for the Spanish language....and his pronunciation is pretty good. I was blown away by everything he knew. He could carry on a pretty decent conversation for awhile. I couldn't stop laughing when he said 'murciélago' (which means bat in English, like the flying ones). I just thought it was so random, of all words to know, how the hell did you come to know 'murciélago' lol I hope that we can continue to bond over the Spanish language :)
That basically ended my Friday night as I made my way home, but I went to bed pretty excited for the Football match we were going to the following morning. It was for the final of the Peace Cup here in Rwanda. The Police were up against the Army (yes, they each have their own separate team here in Rwanda...and both came out to cheer their teams on). We had another experience with the Kigali buses as we made our way up to the stadium. It was only 250 Francs to get us pretty far (that's only about 50 cents in American Money)! Even better, the football match was only 1,000 Francs (that's about a $1.70)! Why can't everything i
n America be this cheap!?!?!?! The stadium itself is pretty nice, it's bright yellow and green, the colors of Rwanda. It was designed by a Chinese architect too! The match itself was pretty exciting. We all know that I'm a HUGE tennis fan (by the way, WIMBLEDON is going on right now!!! GO DJOKOVIC!), but there's a tiny place in my heart for football, especially since it brings me back to the days that I was out on the field myself (LONG time ago). People are so into football here, though, in a way that is really nothing like it is in America. It's all pretty interesting.In the end, Army beat Po
lice, which was pretty sad for my friend, but I actually wanted the Army to win. Their crowd was so much more energetic and apparently, they have more fans in Rwanda than Police. I even told my housekeeper, Kandita that I had gone to the soccer match (I also went to church with her that same morning) and she asked me, who did you root for. When I said Army (APR is the name they are known by throughout Rwanda), she immediately gave me a high-five! lolEnjoy these other pictures of the match!
That's essentially how the weekend went. It was lots of fun and excitement and also a lot of work as we got ready for the lectures and labs that we would giving this week. I hope this gave you a taste of my life here in Kigali.
Much love,
Will
Monday, June 20, 2011
The End of Week 1
AITI Week 1 ended pretty well. We got through the first 2 lectures of our Python material and started labs that allowed the students to go over the concepts we went through in lecture. I personally love lab time way more than lecture because it gives the students some alone time with the material. When the students get stuck and call me over, I try to guide them as much as I can without actually giving them the actual answer. The look on their faces as they understand a question or concept in practice is priceless :) I figured that since I was dealing with a bunch of students that knew how to speak Kinyarwanda, I should probably learn how to say a few teacher-ish things in the language. Turns out "Ufite Ikibazo" ("Do you have a question?") was the phrase of the week! The students really love it when I try to communicate with them in Kinyarwanda. I suppose it shows a strong appreciation for their culture on my part and they laugh at me so much because I am a foreigner saying the weirdest things in their language. 
We ended the week with a *BANG*! Christina, the entrepreneurship lead, came in and spoke to the group about the process of coming up with an idea and testing it, something that the students witll undoubtedly do by the end of this program. The activity we did is known as "Design a Wallet". Basically you want to try and come up with something that serves the purpose of a wallet better than an actual wallet. Christina tried to tell the students that a good way to generate ideas for a product is to go to the users themselves, so we all took out our wallets and saw what things users might be looking for in their 'ideal' wallet. The students ended the day by actually making a model of their ideas. Check out some pictures! :)
more about my weekend to come! :)
We ended the week with a *BANG*! Christina, the entrepreneurship lead, came in and spoke to the group about the process of coming up with an idea and testing it, something that the students witll undoubtedly do by the end of this program. The activity we did is known as "Design a Wallet". Basically you want to try and come up with something that serves the purpose of a wallet better than an actual wallet. Christina tried to tell the students that a good way to generate ideas for a product is to go to the users themselves, so we all took out our wallets and saw what things users might be looking for in their 'ideal' wallet. The students ended the day by actually making a model of their ideas. Check out some pictures! :)
more about my weekend to come! :)
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
AITI: Day 1 and Day 2
Hey Everyone! Sorry I've been silent for the past few days. A lot has been going on in Kigali as we officially started our AITI course this past Monday. I woke up so nervous early Monday morning as Zach and I were getting ready to head to KIST. My thoughts included: "Are you really about to teach computer science?", "What if you speak too fast or too slow?", "What if you tell them something that is completely wrong?"...
Once we finally got in the room, though, my excitement grew much more. When our students would walk in, I would go up to them and greet them with a Rwandan "Good Morning"--'Mwaramutse". Each one of them smiled, probably because I was saying it slightly wrong and probably because it was just humorous to see a "Muzungu" (White Person) speaking Kinyarwanda. At 8:00AM, when class was supposed to start, we had this many students...
We were expecting 46! What happened to all of them!!?!!? By 9:00AM we had somewhere around 32 students, which made us feel a lot better. On the first day, we basically ran through logistics and gave an introduction to the course. Christina ran a really good ideation exercise getting the students to try to come up with solutions to the problem of "Traffic in Kigali". I thought it really got some of the students thinking like entrepreneurs (or at least like Urban Planners {<3 you, Najah Shakir}). Some solutions included a carpooling system, building more roads throughout the city and letting people drive only on certain days of the week.
After that we kinda had to do the boring part of the course and go through the logistics, expectations, rules, etc, which actually took a bit of time. But the big event of the day was a presentation from a company that formed out of last year's AITI Rwanda group--HeHe Ltd. They presented to the students how they were able to start of as just students at KIST and transform into a company that has been standing strong for 1 year already. Many of the students had questions for them, inquiring as to how they came up with their projects last year. All in all, Day 1 seemed like a huge success!
Day 2 was a a bit more....frustrating. We gave the students a Diagnostic test to assess their programming skills and find out what concepts they knew from their previous classes in JAVA and C.We tried to get into the lab yesterday to do all the installations we had to do (Python, Django, Google App Engine) and to make sure the diagnostic as well as the necessary files were available to the students, but there were classes in there up until 8:30PM and Zach and I were exhausted so we decided we could just come in the morning and finish it. It took a LOT longer than we thought. Unfortunately, we ended up giving them the wrong files and we got delayed a good 15 to 20 minutes. We ultimately had to throw out questions 5 and 6 from the exam. Overall, though, the introductory lecture to the Python Material really got people going! We tried to make the point that they already knew a lot of the concepts, they just needed to learn some of Python's syntax!
So far, I'm really enjoying our course and I hope that we can get Python as well as Django to help these students make some great mobile applications! Off to get ready for Day 3, but before I go...here's the sunrise that I woke up to early this morning :) :) :) <3
Once we finally got in the room, though, my excitement grew much more. When our students would walk in, I would go up to them and greet them with a Rwandan "Good Morning"--'Mwaramutse". Each one of them smiled, probably because I was saying it slightly wrong and probably because it was just humorous to see a "Muzungu" (White Person) speaking Kinyarwanda. At 8:00AM, when class was supposed to start, we had this many students...
We were expecting 46! What happened to all of them!!?!!? By 9:00AM we had somewhere around 32 students, which made us feel a lot better. On the first day, we basically ran through logistics and gave an introduction to the course. Christina ran a really good ideation exercise getting the students to try to come up with solutions to the problem of "Traffic in Kigali". I thought it really got some of the students thinking like entrepreneurs (or at least like Urban Planners {<3 you, Najah Shakir}). Some solutions included a carpooling system, building more roads throughout the city and letting people drive only on certain days of the week.
After that we kinda had to do the boring part of the course and go through the logistics, expectations, rules, etc, which actually took a bit of time. But the big event of the day was a presentation from a company that formed out of last year's AITI Rwanda group--HeHe Ltd. They presented to the students how they were able to start of as just students at KIST and transform into a company that has been standing strong for 1 year already. Many of the students had questions for them, inquiring as to how they came up with their projects last year. All in all, Day 1 seemed like a huge success!
Day 2 was a a bit more....frustrating. We gave the students a Diagnostic test to assess their programming skills and find out what concepts they knew from their previous classes in JAVA and C.We tried to get into the lab yesterday to do all the installations we had to do (Python, Django, Google App Engine) and to make sure the diagnostic as well as the necessary files were available to the students, but there were classes in there up until 8:30PM and Zach and I were exhausted so we decided we could just come in the morning and finish it. It took a LOT longer than we thought. Unfortunately, we ended up giving them the wrong files and we got delayed a good 15 to 20 minutes. We ultimately had to throw out questions 5 and 6 from the exam. Overall, though, the introductory lecture to the Python Material really got people going! We tried to make the point that they already knew a lot of the concepts, they just needed to learn some of Python's syntax!
So far, I'm really enjoying our course and I hope that we can get Python as well as Django to help these students make some great mobile applications! Off to get ready for Day 3, but before I go...here's the sunrise that I woke up to early this morning :) :) :) <3
Saturday, June 11, 2011
A Beautiful Day to Play on Clay
The level of excitement and happiness running through my body still has not fully subsided. Today was just one of those extraordinary days where everything just goes unbelievably perfectly. When I found out I was coming to Rwanda this summer, I was a bit worried that my ultimate desire and sometimes seeming necessity to play tennis would make me homesick for ubiquitous hard-court America. When Google Maps showed me that there were a few locations in Kigali with not only tennis courts, but CLAY COURTS, I was ecstatic. I've been playing on hard courts in the United States for the last 7 years and I've sat and watched both the French Open and Wimbledon (play for the 2011 tournament starts on June 20!!!!) wanting to play on surfaces that aren't as accessible in America (unless you have a club membership somewhere...).
Well, it turns out that the opposite is true in other parts of the world. Kigali has only clay courts throughout the entire city. When I found out about a sports facility known as Cercle Sportif de Kigali I knew I had to go! It turns out that today was the day to do just that...and what a day it was! As soon as I saw these babies...I gasped.
Finally, an accessible clay court for this Cuban boy! The cost to play was only ₣3,000 ($5) for the day, so we went right in. We immediately met this guy named Olivier who tried to sell us his court for ₣1,000 ($1.67) since there was a decent wait line. Not long after, we found out that he was actually pretty drunk (and was pretty well known for being so throughout the tennis facility). Not long after, a tall kid came up to us and told us not to pay attention to Olivier since he tends to get pretty drunk and doesn't really know what he's doing (as we were being told this, Olivier had walked right into the middle of another match going on between two people and tried to tell them to get off...). He introduced himself as Hakim and told us that we could always contact him if we needed to reserve a court.
This is where fate comes into the picture. Zach and I started to make casual conversation with the kid, asking him if played tennis at all. Not only did he play tennis, he turned out to be a Junior player for the COUNTRY of Rwanda! I had just shaken hands with one of the best players in the country...I was speechless. Hakim told us that he could help us get a court and would love to play with us. I was a extremely intimidated. I picked up tennis at the age of 15 after watching Maria Sharapova defeat Serena Williams in the Wimbledon Final (2004). We could never afford to coach me and my high school didn't have a team, so I've basically just kinda taught myself over the years. This guy has undoubtedly put countless hours into perfecting aspects of his game to compete in East African Tournaments. But I wasn't going to turn the chance down...
From the very first shot he hit, I was impressed. I was given a partner named Prince (like the racket brand) and we played doubles against Zach and Hakim. All these guys were great. Solid ground strokes, great serves...everything. They weren't just hitting as hard as they could, they were successfully hitting the ball in 98% of the time. It felt great at times to be told I had hit a great shot, especially by these guys. Right when we were about to start playing a set, we got kicked off because someone else had reserved the court...guess we'd have to wait a bit.
In that time, I was able to make some Rwandan friends. Although they were about half my age, they were all really eager to talk to me. They asked me what I was doing in Rwanda. Where I lived in America. How long I'm here. Whether I was learning Kinyarwanda, etc. I also got the opportunity to watch true African Football (Though Zach and I are looking into going to see a game at the Stadium at some point next week)! (I dedicate this moment to Sam Acquah)
Immediately afterwards, we finally got play our set. I felt good that I could keep up with what these guys were throwing at me (though I know it wasn't what they are truly capable of). I also finally got my taste of African rain. It felt amazing and really helped cool me down when we were playing. I thought it was interesting how much longer you could play on clay courts when it is raining compared to hard court. The clay kinda soaks up a bit of the rain, so you only really have to stop if it REALLY pours....which it did! Ultimately, we had some amazing points and great shots from all sides. The score ultimately ended up being 6-1, 1-6. Guess we were evenly matched! Of course I got a picture with such amazing players before we returned back to the house!
The rain fell pretty heavily here in Rwanda tonight, but it felt great! Zach and I walked back to the house in the middle of some heavy rains, but it felt AMAZING. I hope it happens again while I'm here. And in case you've been wondering what my dinners are like, here's a little peek into my food life (which I will make a separate blog post about soon!)
All in all, life is pretty damn good right now....:) ONE MORE DAY TIL WE START TEACHING!
Well, it turns out that the opposite is true in other parts of the world. Kigali has only clay courts throughout the entire city. When I found out about a sports facility known as Cercle Sportif de Kigali I knew I had to go! It turns out that today was the day to do just that...and what a day it was! As soon as I saw these babies...I gasped.
Finally, an accessible clay court for this Cuban boy! The cost to play was only ₣3,000 ($5) for the day, so we went right in. We immediately met this guy named Olivier who tried to sell us his court for ₣1,000 ($1.67) since there was a decent wait line. Not long after, we found out that he was actually pretty drunk (and was pretty well known for being so throughout the tennis facility). Not long after, a tall kid came up to us and told us not to pay attention to Olivier since he tends to get pretty drunk and doesn't really know what he's doing (as we were being told this, Olivier had walked right into the middle of another match going on between two people and tried to tell them to get off...). He introduced himself as Hakim and told us that we could always contact him if we needed to reserve a court.
This is where fate comes into the picture. Zach and I started to make casual conversation with the kid, asking him if played tennis at all. Not only did he play tennis, he turned out to be a Junior player for the COUNTRY of Rwanda! I had just shaken hands with one of the best players in the country...I was speechless. Hakim told us that he could help us get a court and would love to play with us. I was a extremely intimidated. I picked up tennis at the age of 15 after watching Maria Sharapova defeat Serena Williams in the Wimbledon Final (2004). We could never afford to coach me and my high school didn't have a team, so I've basically just kinda taught myself over the years. This guy has undoubtedly put countless hours into perfecting aspects of his game to compete in East African Tournaments. But I wasn't going to turn the chance down...
From the very first shot he hit, I was impressed. I was given a partner named Prince (like the racket brand) and we played doubles against Zach and Hakim. All these guys were great. Solid ground strokes, great serves...everything. They weren't just hitting as hard as they could, they were successfully hitting the ball in 98% of the time. It felt great at times to be told I had hit a great shot, especially by these guys. Right when we were about to start playing a set, we got kicked off because someone else had reserved the court...guess we'd have to wait a bit.
In that time, I was able to make some Rwandan friends. Although they were about half my age, they were all really eager to talk to me. They asked me what I was doing in Rwanda. Where I lived in America. How long I'm here. Whether I was learning Kinyarwanda, etc. I also got the opportunity to watch true African Football (Though Zach and I are looking into going to see a game at the Stadium at some point next week)! (I dedicate this moment to Sam Acquah)
Immediately afterwards, we finally got play our set. I felt good that I could keep up with what these guys were throwing at me (though I know it wasn't what they are truly capable of). I also finally got my taste of African rain. It felt amazing and really helped cool me down when we were playing. I thought it was interesting how much longer you could play on clay courts when it is raining compared to hard court. The clay kinda soaks up a bit of the rain, so you only really have to stop if it REALLY pours....which it did! Ultimately, we had some amazing points and great shots from all sides. The score ultimately ended up being 6-1, 1-6. Guess we were evenly matched! Of course I got a picture with such amazing players before we returned back to the house!
The rain fell pretty heavily here in Rwanda tonight, but it felt great! Zach and I walked back to the house in the middle of some heavy rains, but it felt AMAZING. I hope it happens again while I'm here. And in case you've been wondering what my dinners are like, here's a little peek into my food life (which I will make a separate blog post about soon!)
All in all, life is pretty damn good right now....:) ONE MORE DAY TIL WE START TEACHING!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
A Major History Lesson
When I told people that I was coming to Rwanda for the summer, everyone seemed to be shocked that I would be willing to go to a place that had a Civil War only 15 years ago. To be honest, even I had my doubts for a time, but I knew the country was in much better shape than most people probably thought. Today, Zach and I decided to go and find out the story behind it all, so we got ourselves to the Rwandan Genocide Memorial and learned all about an event that still affects the people of Rwanda.
The memorial was...intense, not necessarily from the beginning, but it builds up while you walk from one section to the next. There are videos of survivors describing how they lost their moms, dads, sisters and brothers. Even scarier, there are videos of people describing how family friends went from being like brothers and sisters in their homes, eating meals together and ultimately turned on them, trying to kill them during the genocide. It was really sad. But I think the room that affected me the most, was this one...
This room has pictures of those who died during the Rwandan genocide back in 1994. It is definitely one thing to hear about a massive group of people dying, but it is another to actually be able to look them in the eye. I sat down for a few minutes to take it all in. As I looked from one family to another, I couldn't help but wonder how the surviving friends and family of these people are doing without their relatives and friends. I asked God to watch over these people...
I think the Memorial is designed in a way to alleviate the intensity of this section because right after this came a BEAUTIFUL Garden! So many palm trees, water fountains and sculptures! I don't think I could have taken more pictures of it. As I was walking around in the garden, this woman was sweeping. I was going to ask her to take a picture of me with the fountain, but then she asked me for some money and kept starting at me when I didn't have any small bills to give her.
Monkey on a cellphone :)
Zach and I came back and had an AWESOME lunch ready for us! I'm really getting spoiled by this Rwandan food. We have pineapple and rice with every meal (which I love because Hispanic food always has rice and pineapples remind me of Hawai'i <3). Our cook is so nice, she tries to teach me some Kinyarwanda almost every meal so I can better communicate here in Kigali, hopefully I'm a pro by the time we go back to America!
Later, Zach and I went to KIST to make sure that our lab would be working and had all the necessary software that the students would need (Python, Django, Google AppEngine). We had a lab technician help us install everything. We also interviewed students who were in the AITI program last year so they could help us by being teaching assistance this year. All these kids are amazing (I probably shouldn't call them kids since they're probably my age lol)! We had a meeting with one particular group from last year that started a company called HeHe. They are really excited about AITI this year and they are willing to help is out in so many ways! We really wanted to get feedback from them on what worked in last year's course and what we could change a bit about the one we'll be running starting MONDAY!
We finished the night with our first complete team meeting! At this place called REPUBLICA. It had a great view of the Rwandan hills and some pretty good food too! Zach, Christina and I just kinda recapped a lot of the program, got to know each other a bit better and set up some times to talk about what's coming up next week with the start of the course. It's really starting to come all together. This is our last weekend before we finally meet the students on Monday morning and start teaching!!!!
The memorial was...intense, not necessarily from the beginning, but it builds up while you walk from one section to the next. There are videos of survivors describing how they lost their moms, dads, sisters and brothers. Even scarier, there are videos of people describing how family friends went from being like brothers and sisters in their homes, eating meals together and ultimately turned on them, trying to kill them during the genocide. It was really sad. But I think the room that affected me the most, was this one...
This room has pictures of those who died during the Rwandan genocide back in 1994. It is definitely one thing to hear about a massive group of people dying, but it is another to actually be able to look them in the eye. I sat down for a few minutes to take it all in. As I looked from one family to another, I couldn't help but wonder how the surviving friends and family of these people are doing without their relatives and friends. I asked God to watch over these people...I think the Memorial is designed in a way to alleviate the intensity of this section because right after this came a BEAUTIFUL Garden! So many palm trees, water fountains and sculptures! I don't think I could have taken more pictures of it. As I was walking around in the garden, this woman was sweeping. I was going to ask her to take a picture of me with the fountain, but then she asked me for some money and kept starting at me when I didn't have any small bills to give her.
Monkey on a cellphone :)
Zach and I came back and had an AWESOME lunch ready for us! I'm really getting spoiled by this Rwandan food. We have pineapple and rice with every meal (which I love because Hispanic food always has rice and pineapples remind me of Hawai'i <3). Our cook is so nice, she tries to teach me some Kinyarwanda almost every meal so I can better communicate here in Kigali, hopefully I'm a pro by the time we go back to America!
Later, Zach and I went to KIST to make sure that our lab would be working and had all the necessary software that the students would need (Python, Django, Google AppEngine). We had a lab technician help us install everything. We also interviewed students who were in the AITI program last year so they could help us by being teaching assistance this year. All these kids are amazing (I probably shouldn't call them kids since they're probably my age lol)! We had a meeting with one particular group from last year that started a company called HeHe. They are really excited about AITI this year and they are willing to help is out in so many ways! We really wanted to get feedback from them on what worked in last year's course and what we could change a bit about the one we'll be running starting MONDAY!
We finished the night with our first complete team meeting! At this place called REPUBLICA. It had a great view of the Rwandan hills and some pretty good food too! Zach, Christina and I just kinda recapped a lot of the program, got to know each other a bit better and set up some times to talk about what's coming up next week with the start of the course. It's really starting to come all together. This is our last weekend before we finally meet the students on Monday morning and start teaching!!!!
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
A Change of Venue
Things are getting underway quickly here in Kigali. Zach and I have been meeting and setting up meetings with a lot of people lately! We finally met Santhi an instructor at KIST and the person who is essentially responsible for maintaining the contact with MIT AITI. Her Indian accent really made me miss my Indian friends back at MIT (<3)! At KIST they have an interesting system where each class year has a student representative and he was gracious enough to take us around the campus and show us the lab facilities and lecture halls we'll be teaching in. They're pretty nice! :)
It turns out that our class is pretty popular! There are 46 students who ask every single day whether they'll be allowed to take it. Zach and I have a hard time turning them down, so we're going to try to find some assistance to make sure that we can accommodate all of them. That's a huge number though...guess we're just gonna have to work EXTRA hard! We have been doing quite a bit of hard work on everything though. I don't think there's been a single day since Zach and I have been here in Rwanda, where we haven't sat at Bourbon Coffee to go through lectures on Python. We are thinking a lot of things through. We even decided to make worksheets to go with our lectures and we're making additional updates and changes to a lot of the lectures that were made by other teams. I think this is great though, we're going to be really prepared come crunch time! I guess the one thing I am really grateful for is the fact that Zach and I seem to work really well together. We hear each other out and are not really critical of one another. We also are not scared to say what we think. We have some lucky students :)
Today was quite a day, if I do say so myself. Zach was feeling a bit sick last night so he went to bed a bit early and I was looking up some stuff to learn Kinyarwanda. Since we've been here, we've been waking up around 7 or 7:30, but I think I woke up around 8:30 today, which felt great! We woke up to an email from Zach's mom that mentioned that she had some friends that might be able to set us up in an another place closer to KIST. Zach and I thought that was a great idea and after meeting with a few people, we are now staying....HERE!
We immediately fell in love with the place! It is actually not too far from the place where the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, lives! We had to give up having our own rooms, but there is more than enough space for us to work. We have running water and the best part is....WE HAVE OUR OWN COOK! We just had our first hand-cooked Rwandan meal. SO GOOD!
I tried to find the name of our meal, but it didn't seem to come up in Google. I'll try to ask our cook tomorrow. One thing I think I realized today is how truly and genuinely nice the people or Rwanda are. People not only help you, but they want to keep helping you to make sure that you're okay. After we agreed to move into this new place, we were told, just let us know if you need anything else! When we got to the actual place our housemaid came out and as I stretched out my hand to greet her (as I usually done with people here in Rwanda), she just went right around me and gave me a hug. We had a driver today that took us to get our stuff from the old place were staying and help us bring it up here to our new home. Zach and I decided that he went out of his way to help us (especially since he got a traffic ticket waiting for us at our old place) that we decided to give him ₣5000 (that's Francs, the currency in Rwanda). He even offered to drive us anywhere where we might need to go and what do you know, we had planned to go and visit the Genocide Memorial! Turns out that by the time we were done with all of this moving and settling in, it was already late afternoon and the Memorial closes at 4PM. We decided it would actually be better to go tomorrow morning, so our buddy John will be picking us up bright and early at 8:30AM (after our cook makes us breakfast)! Don't worry, my camera is already charging :)
As I've learned to say in Kinyarwanda, Ijoro Rwiza! Good Night!
It turns out that our class is pretty popular! There are 46 students who ask every single day whether they'll be allowed to take it. Zach and I have a hard time turning them down, so we're going to try to find some assistance to make sure that we can accommodate all of them. That's a huge number though...guess we're just gonna have to work EXTRA hard! We have been doing quite a bit of hard work on everything though. I don't think there's been a single day since Zach and I have been here in Rwanda, where we haven't sat at Bourbon Coffee to go through lectures on Python. We are thinking a lot of things through. We even decided to make worksheets to go with our lectures and we're making additional updates and changes to a lot of the lectures that were made by other teams. I think this is great though, we're going to be really prepared come crunch time! I guess the one thing I am really grateful for is the fact that Zach and I seem to work really well together. We hear each other out and are not really critical of one another. We also are not scared to say what we think. We have some lucky students :)
Today was quite a day, if I do say so myself. Zach was feeling a bit sick last night so he went to bed a bit early and I was looking up some stuff to learn Kinyarwanda. Since we've been here, we've been waking up around 7 or 7:30, but I think I woke up around 8:30 today, which felt great! We woke up to an email from Zach's mom that mentioned that she had some friends that might be able to set us up in an another place closer to KIST. Zach and I thought that was a great idea and after meeting with a few people, we are now staying....HERE!
We immediately fell in love with the place! It is actually not too far from the place where the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, lives! We had to give up having our own rooms, but there is more than enough space for us to work. We have running water and the best part is....WE HAVE OUR OWN COOK! We just had our first hand-cooked Rwandan meal. SO GOOD!
I tried to find the name of our meal, but it didn't seem to come up in Google. I'll try to ask our cook tomorrow. One thing I think I realized today is how truly and genuinely nice the people or Rwanda are. People not only help you, but they want to keep helping you to make sure that you're okay. After we agreed to move into this new place, we were told, just let us know if you need anything else! When we got to the actual place our housemaid came out and as I stretched out my hand to greet her (as I usually done with people here in Rwanda), she just went right around me and gave me a hug. We had a driver today that took us to get our stuff from the old place were staying and help us bring it up here to our new home. Zach and I decided that he went out of his way to help us (especially since he got a traffic ticket waiting for us at our old place) that we decided to give him ₣5000 (that's Francs, the currency in Rwanda). He even offered to drive us anywhere where we might need to go and what do you know, we had planned to go and visit the Genocide Memorial! Turns out that by the time we were done with all of this moving and settling in, it was already late afternoon and the Memorial closes at 4PM. We decided it would actually be better to go tomorrow morning, so our buddy John will be picking us up bright and early at 8:30AM (after our cook makes us breakfast)! Don't worry, my camera is already charging :)
As I've learned to say in Kinyarwanda, Ijoro Rwiza! Good Night!
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